Locus Robotics Is Industry’s First AMR Company to Support Omnichannel Retail with the Launch of New Spring 2019 Hardware and Software Suite

April 9th 2019

Locus Robotics announces the launch of its Spring 2019 software and hardware suite featuring significant new functionality and enhancements to our powerful multi-bot software, hardware, and user experience (UX). These new features further improve productivity, operational flexibility and performance, and efficiency for retail/e-tail, third party logistics (3PL), distribution and industrial specialty customers. Our new software and hardware capabilities also enable us to fully support omnichannel including retail, wholesale, and e-commerce fulfillment, permit true task interleaving, and allow multiple order types to be simultaneously fulfilled on a single robot.

“Our Spring 2019 Release incorporates several powerful, productivity-driving enhancements into our multi-bot solution,” said Rick Faulk, CEO of Locus Robotics. “We’re especially excited to introduce the industry’s first, full omnichannel support that seamlessly handles all aspects of fulfillment for retail, wholesale, and e-commerce channels. Together, these new features enable us to deliver even greater levels of optimization and productivity gains to our customers and continue our goal of consistently delivering results and innovation across the entire spectrum of order fulfillment.”

Primary features of the Spring 2019 release include:

• Full Omnichannel Support: Locus delivers full omnichannel fulfillment support. This enables efficient picking of complex retail shipments and permits simultaneous picking for retail store replenishment, wholesale, and e-commerce orders on a single robot. • Putaway Functionality: LocusBots are fully enabled to handle putaway functionality, allowing items to be easily and accurately restocked or returned to inventory. This significantly improves productivity and efficiency while allowing workers to interleave tasks between pick and put. • Multi-Order, Multi-Tote Picking: LocusBots can easily accommodate a full range of picking containers. Mix and match different cartons and totes of all sizes to work with any pick process or workflow, further enhancing fulfillment productivity and throughput. • Bulk Item Picking: Easily pick larger quantities of goods for later sorting at a sortation station. • LocusBot Top-Off Auto-Charging: The industry’s most sophisticated, dynamic auto-charging system ensures LocusBots are always charged, eliminating downtime. Locus’s proprietary software automatically recognizes lulls throughout the day and directs the LocusBots to recharge periodically, or “top off”, ensuring optimal charge states during peak operational periods. • Accessory Power Port: The new, mast-mounted accessory power port allows LocusBots to add a wide range of mobile hardware for use during piece handling. For example, onboard printers can be tasked to print while driving, saving time that would otherwise be spent walking to printers for shipping labels, pick tickets, and more. • Gamification: Using real-time order picking data, Locus customers can create fun and engaging internal competitions to motivate and reward warehouse workers for achieving higher order fulfillment levels, thus improving the working experience for employees, while also maximizing productivity and throughput for retail and 3PL customers. This feature is especially valuable for companies that integrate pay-for-performance (PFP) programs to incentivize their workers. • Real-Time Traffic Flow Management: Locus’s powerful and innovative software dynamically balances workloads with real-time traffic management and flow control to significantly improve picking velocity and productivity, allowing the LocusBots to actively adapt to dynamic changes in the warehouse. • Custom Robot Branding: Locus can add customer-branded graphics or fun graphical themes to extend branding to a fleet of robots!

Locus’s Spring 2019 Release is currently on display and available for demonstration at Booth #S3212 at ProMat 2019, which runs from April 8th – 11th at Chicago’s McCormick Place. The Company’s new Gamification feature is also a finalist for MHI’s annual Best New Innovation Award, selected as one of the most innovative new products out of 108 submissions from this year’s ProMat exhibitors. Award winners will be announced on April 10th during ProMat’s MHI Industry Night with Craig Ferguson.